Worry and Love
by Gypsy Love
Summary: Daniel's mother, Lucille, worries about him.
1. Chapter 1

I was winging this thing. Sometimes I felt so acutely alone. My parents were dead, my husband was a dead beat who left us years ago. Daniel and me, we only had me to depend on. I didn't always know what to do. I thought this move to the west coast would be good for both of us, I got this job in computers with benefits. It was supposed to be paradise out here, all palm trees and swimming pools. And the winters in Newark were making me weary, just tired deep in my soul. I needed a change.

I saw Daniel's face when he saw the swimming pool. The apartment building was a little run down and I was disappointed, too. But I try to have hope that things will be good, that things can be good, that things will work out. I have to have that hope. Sometimes it's all I have.

And Daniel, I'm worried about him. Something is bothering him. He keeps showing up with all these injuries and he always has excuses but I don't know. Teenagers are so secretive, you never know what's real with them, especially being the parent. Why would he tell me anything? It's hard at this age, it's hard when they're 16. You know, he's growing up but he isn't grown up yet, and I'm not so sure how much to do for him and how much to let him figure out on his own, and when he won't tell me anything what can I do? Sometimes I miss that little boy he used to be, that little boy with the black hair and big brown eyes who would tell me everything and I could kiss every hurt away. It isn't so simple anymore.

Even though he won't talk to me about anything I know Daniel isn't happy here. I can see it in his face. I can hear it in his voice. It makes me feel guilty for ripping him away from everything he's ever known. I didn't ask him if he wanted to come here because maybe I was afraid that he would have said he didn't want to. I'm trying to succeed, I'm trying to have a decent job and a decent life despite my ex-husband leaving us high and dry when Daniel was little. I'm trying to be mother and father to him. I'm earning the bread and baking it, too. And sometimes I feel stretched a little thin. Sometimes I feel that there isn't enough of me to go around. It's hard to work all day and then clean all night and cook and pay the bills and coordinate life and figure out a mysterious teenager with pain in his eyes who just won't talk to me. I see him sitting on the couch at night, so quiet. That's not like him. He's always been this chatterbox, but since we got here he's been quiet. I say, "Daniel, what's wrong?" and he says nothing, shakes his head and says nothing is wrong.

The computer job fell through but I found another one the very same day. It's at a restaurant and it's a manager position with good benefits. I roll with the punches. I'd work around the clock at McDonald's if I had to. But the restaurant job is taking up a lot more of my time than the computer job would, what with the training sessions and the long hours. I'm not there for Daniel to talk to even if he wanted to talk. And it's easy to get into the groove of your routine. I go my way and he goes his way, but still, things are nagging at me. He said he fell off his bike and that's how he got that black eye. I don't believe him. Someone did that to him. But who? It's never been like him to get into fights. Maybe he got mugged or something and he doesn't want to tell me.

I feel like I'm just waiting for some shoe to drop. Waiting for whatever is wrong with him to come to light, and I can't ask him and I can't rush it. I don't like that. I like to rush in, fix problems, find solutions. But I'm not even sure where the problem lies. Is it bullies? Is it fights that he's starting? Is he so out of control now that he'd resort to violence like that? I don't know. I didn't raise him like that and I never thought he was like that but this teenager thing, they're so different. So difficult. Half the time I don' know what to say to him, I don't know what to say as he grows up right in front of my eyes.

I love him more than anything even though I'm a little bit lost right now. It was easier when he was younger and I seemed to have all the answers. Now I have none of them. I'm just as clueless as the next guy. All I know is we've got to stick it out, persevere, be strong. I know this. I wonder if he does?

I worked all day and feel so tired now. I drive home and hear a strange rattling somewhere under the car and hope it holds out to get me home. I didn't feel like standing in the exhaust by the side of the road. I pulled into the parking space and glanced up at the apartment. I can see the flicker of the T.V. and I know he's home. I look forward to seeing him despite knowing it will be short answers and small nods to all my questions. Up the stairs in the dark, key in the lock, and he looks up when I step inside. Even in the dark blue glow of the T.V. I can see the fading bruise around his eye. I feel worry and love pour into me, pumping through my heart and throughout my entire body. Sometimes there just is no way to help people, especially the ones you love the most.


	2. Chapter 2

Working all day and my worry for Daniel simmers under my brain like worms writhing in the dark dirt. Finally my work day is done, and exhausted I drive home, hoping like always that the car will make it and take me there. And I'm walking up to my apartment when I see Daniel by the dumpster with his bike, and I wonder what he's doing. I get closer and I can hear him yelling, so upset, and he tosses the bike into the dumpster. It was all twisted up and broken. As I get closer I hear him.

"I hate that bike, that goddamn bike!"

"Daniel! What are you doing! What's wrong!"

"Nothing!"

I grab him, tug on his sweatshirt so he won't leave, and I see the cuts and bruises on his face and I see that his clothes are all torn and dirty. It slams into me, this knowledge that someone is hurting him. I mean, I knew something was going on, I knew, but now I really knew.

"Why'd you throw your bike away!" I said, staring at the bruises and his bleeding temple, bloody lip. He wiped the blood away on his sleeve.

"I felt like it!" He was so angry. His eyes were blazing. It wasn't exactly anger at me, but I was in there. I, after all, am the one who brought us here.

"What happened, and don't tell me about another bike accident!" I said, I screamed. We were screaming at each other. This isn't what you envision, not when your child is a sweet little baby and you rock them in your arms. You think things will go smoothly, that you'll always be calm and understanding. But I was angry now, too. He was so secretive. He wouldn't tell me anything. Not only did I not have the answers, I didn't even know the questions.

"Well, what do you want to hear?" he said, trying to get out of my grasp but I wouldn't let him. I held on. I was going to find out what was going on.

"I want to hear the truth!"

He jerked away from me, pulled away, and looked at me with narrowed eyes.

"No, you don't want to hear the truth! You just want to hear about how great it is out here! Well, it may be great for you but it sucks for me! I hate it here! I just want to go home!" He hit the wall, pounded it with his fist and then leaned his head against the wall. He was turned away from me, shut off, shutting down. Was he right? Did I want things to be good so bad that I ignored the truth of things? Maybe I didn't want the ugly truth. Maybe I wanted crystal clear swimming pools and good jobs with great benefits and an end to the worry for just one day. Maybe he was right.

But he was a kid, a teenager, and I had to try and hold my own. Because he wasn't right, either. He turned around now, leaning against the wall.

"I have to take karate, that's it!" I went over to him, fixed his sweatshirt that was falling off his shoulders, seeing the dirt and grass that had got into his hair.

"Fighting doesn't solve anything!" I said, yelled, shouted. What solved things? Reason? But I didn't even know what was going on with him. Who was he fighting against, and why? I wished I had a clue.

"Neither does palm trees," he shot back. I knew what he was talking about, and he could be right, he probably was. I wanted this beautiful place and the warm weather and palm trees to solve everything in a way. I worked hard and I scrounged around for what we needed, and when things were broken I fixed them, and when things were hobbled I got whatever use out of them that I could, but I didn't always look at things so bleakly. I saw this run down apartment building as some kind of paradise because that's what I wanted to see. But Daniel's angry expression and his injuries was proof enough that it wasn't paradise.


	3. Chapter 3

It's hard to describe what it's like having a teenager. It's hard to explain. I have this sense that I can't solve anything. He wouldn't tell me anything, still, despite the bruises and the anger. "What's going on?" I say to him, and he shakes his head. He won't tell me anything. He leaves me to draw my own conclusions.

At a certain point with your kids, you can't help them. You just can't. They have to help themselves. They have to figure it out. Or maybe they need help, but not from you. You could say something and it will go in one ear and out the other, but if the right person says it, then they'll listen. You have to hope they find this right person, or the still and quiet voice inside of themselves that can point the way. Some people get lost at this point and don't make it. Not everyone does. Of course I don't think that will happen to Daniel.

I'm trying to breathe, and to trust that he'll find his way. This isn't a skinned knee that I can kiss away the hurt and put a band-aid on and everything will be okay.

I looked at him over the breakfast table, looked at the new gash on his forehead and I told myself I wouldn't badger him. I'd let him be. He was quiet. I didn't like that. He wasn't normally a quiet person, and when he was something was wrong. I resisted the urge to shake him, to demand that he let me in and let me solve his life for him.

I went to work after he left for school. He walked to the bus stop, shoulders hunched up, sadness in his walk. I thought of his bike in the dumpster, thought of how I couldn't take it out and fix it. He didn't want the bike. He didn't want my help. And all day long I worried despite trying to breathe and not worry. I thought about who might hurt him today.

And then my long day was done, again, and I headed home. I tried to quell the fear I felt, knowing in my heart that Daniel might not be okay. I was hoping for the best and fearing the worst and my stomach was in knots. I parked the car and looked out the windshield into the dark, and I thought of how cold it would be in New Jersey by this time. But maybe we should have stayed there.

Things seemed quiet enough as I headed up to the apartment, but on my way past the maintenance office I thought I heard his voice. I peered through the screen door and he was there, trimming these tiny trees with the handy man. I watched them for a moment. Daniel was somewhat quiet, working on the tree with these clippers, but talking sometimes, and it wasn't the sullen, 'something is wrong,' quiet. It was thoughtful and intent.

I tapped on the screen door and both the handyman and Daniel looked toward me. Daniel looked, I don't know, almost peaceful. Much calmer than he had been, the agitation and anger was gone, at least for now. I felt my tense muscles start to relax.

"Hi, Ma," he said, and the handyman said to come in. I saw his bike in the corner and blinked back tears that he had dug it out of the dumpster and fixed it.

"Mr. Myagi fixed my bike," he said, and I started to dig into my purse for my checkbook.

"Thank you. How much do I owe you?" I said, calculating the bills and the rent and groceries in my head. Did I have an extra hundred or so for Daniel's bike?

"Oh, no charge," Mr. Myagi said in the clipped Japanese accent. Tears almost threatened again but I blinked them back.

"Oh, thank you," I said, and I knew I might cry up at the apartment. It's just been so long since I felt helped in any way. I felt like I've been fighting, fighting for jobs and fighting my breaking down car and just struggling to make the ends meet. I felt like there's been no relief, like I've been crawling through a desert. That's how I feel, and on top of it all to have Daniel falling apart, well, I almost fell apart, too. I don't think I realized how close I came until I saw that shiny like new bike and Mr. Myagi said there was no charge. I needed that.

"Come on, let's go," I said to Daniel as he clipped at the tree.

"In a minute," he said.

"No, now. School tomorrow," I said, and Daniel shrugged and put the clippers down and stood up. He wasn't pissed off at me like he had been so often. Mr. Myagi gave us some little trees that he called bonsai trees, and they were tiny and delicate and perfect. I thanked him and he nodded and bowed slightly.

Going up to the apartment Daniel started talking.

"He gave us the best ones. And did you see what he did to my bike? This guy is great," He rattled on and on like he used to, before all these black eyes and bruised ribs. I felt choked up again. I thought of how the bike was fixed, and how maybe Daniel had found the person he needed to help him fix whatever was going wrong.

I thought about how Daniel needed a father, or some father figure. I knew he did. I guess I knew I couldn't be mother and father to him, I couldn't work all day and be there for him and solve the problems. It's delusional to think you can do it all. It takes more than one person to raise a child, especially if that child is a teenager.


End file.
